Online searches for flights plummet
The number of people searching for flights online via Google plunged from over five million in March last year to just 2.4 million last month.
According to data released by Greenlight, the number of flight-related search terms plummeted down to below four million in April 2013, then remained fairly flat throughout last summer but dropped sharply again from September.
By January 2014 there were fewer than 2.5 million searches a month, and the figure fell again slightly last month.
Of the 2.4 milllion searches for flight-related keywords in February, almost a third were for longhaul flights and 15% of searches were for "cheap flights", which was queried 368,000 times.
Not surprisingly then, Cheapflights.co.uk was the most visible website.
The company came top of the paid media listings and second, just behind Skyscanner, in the natural search league table.
Easyjet was the most visible airline for natural searches for flights, coming fifth overall, well ahead of both Ryanair (in seventh place) and British Airways (12th).
For long-haul flight searches, Virgin Atlantic outperformed BA, coming in sixth place, one ahead of its rival.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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